PGSC 1002 (3 credits)

Paleontology & Biostratigraphy

Welcome Lecture and Introduction to Paleontology
3rd September 2018
Dr. Anastasia Baboolal

Anastasia Baboolal 2018/2019 Semester I 1

Learning outcomes

At the end of the lecture the student should be able to –

• identify main topics and learning objectives and understand

the assessment criteria for PGSC 1002;

• list three main concepts surrounding paleontology,

biostratigraphy and petroleum geoscience

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Keywords
• Let me hear from you!

• What keywords would you say best describe petroleum geoscience

and paleontology?

• Fossils, dinosaurs, stromatolites, the age of the earth, algae, fungus,

meteors, evolution, cephalopods, Cenozoic, mesozoic,

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Topics
• Fundamentals of Biostratigraphy and Evolution
• The Nature of Evolution
• The Paleozic Era
• The Mesozoic Era
• The Cenozoic Era
• Palaentology
• Cephalopods and Biostratigraphy
• Forminifera in Biostratigraphy and Paleoecology

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How do these topics fit into this degree?

Petroleum Geoscience

Commercial hydrocarbon
deposits
Earth’s structure

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How do these topics fit into this degree?
Petroleum Geoscientists

Exploration Possible drilling sites for

prospects hydrocarbon exploration

Assessing acreage

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Why study Paleontology and Biostratigraphy?:
Oil and Gas and Fossils?
• Using Microscopic Fossils to find wealth!
• Hydrocarbons (oil and natural gas) are the mainstay of T&T’s
economy.
• 4 steps are critical to the formation of these hydrocarbons:
• The deposition of a source rock
• The formation of a kitchen
• Migration and,
• Accumulation into a reservoir rock.

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 Oil and Gas and Fossils?
• Microscopic fossils such as foraminifera (Shelled amoeba like
creatures, called ‘forams” for short) can help us to identify source
and reservoir rocks.
• Source rocks are rich in organic matter, very fine grained and very
scarce!
Anomalinoides alazanensis Cibicidoides pachyderma

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Oil and Gas and Fossils?
• Sedimentary rocks deposited in marine environment, are rich in the
remains of forams that were able to withstand high nutrient levels
and the low dissolved oxygen levels that formed when the organic flux
was being oxidised on the ancient sea floor.

• Trinidad’s main source rock is the Naparima Hill Formation (about 95-
100 million years old), and we it is nowadays exposed at the San
Fernando Hill.

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Oil and Gas and Fossils?
• To convert the organics to hydrocarbons, the source rock must be
buried deeply to form a kitchen at which appropriate temperatures
generate hydrocarbons.

• This can occur millions of yeas after source rock deposition.

• For Trinidad most of our kitchens developed about 25 million years

ago (25 mya).

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Oil and Gas and Fossils?
• The hydrocarbons then migrate underground into coarse grained
reservoir rocks such as sandstones.

• These sandstones are like sponges having lots of spaces that become
filled with oil, gas or water.

• Most reservoir rocks around Trinidad and Tobago were deposited

within the last 12 million years.

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And now what?!
• Fossil forams can tell us the spatial extent of a reservoir sandstone.

• Lets say an oil company has drilled a well and found in it a sandstone
containing oil. It then drills another well some distance away and
again finds a sandstone with oil.

• The company will want to know if it has found the same sandstone,
giving one enormous oil field, OR has it found two separate
sandstones containing two tiny fields?

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Course outline and course content
• What does reading for your degree mean?
• How are you being assessed?
• Course outline contains all the important information on PGSC 1002
• Googledrive/ email
• Class representative

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